A goofy goal to start the game, and then a nice goal by Cleary in front....all in the first couple minutes of the game. Detroit came out on fire.But the Blues did good to weather the storm. They gave up a lot of shots early, and they were able to bend without breaking, so to speak.

Detroit is a very good team. They are going to get pressure like that on just about every team they play, every night...that's just the way it is. You just have to be able to survive without giving up the "great chances", keep them to the outside, clog up the slot, and wait for the storm to pass. That's exactly what the Blues did. Detroit had a ton of pressure, and a lot of shots early, but they really didn't have a lot of glorious chances. Their best scoring chances saw them shooting wide most of the night.

Detroit definitely owned the first period, but the Blues were only down 2-1. Then St. Louis came back to tie the game in the 2nd...then fall behind 3-2 on a very nice goal by Kronwall. But that's all the Wings had left. The Blues took over for the rest of the game, scoring two more goals in the 2nd to lead going into the 3rd, 4-3...and then scoring one more in the 3rd period.

The Blues have played extremely well in the 3rd period with the lead in both games so far against a world class team (with poor goaltending). They deserve major credit for that.And speaking of goaltending, Detroit may have the worst goaltending in the league again, maybe even worse than last year...and after losing 80+ goals from the lineup they aren't going anywhere with their goaltending...unless Howard is a diamond in the rough...and he didn't show us anything today.

I am quite happy with our goaltending...and I am happy we have Conklin backing up Mason. The Wings were foolish to let him go.

The 2009-2010 St. Louis Blues are extremely fun team to watch. This is shaping up to be a fun season.

Blues rolled 4 lines like yesterday. Only one forward (Berglund) had less than 10 minutes of ice time and he was barely under 10 minutes. Jackman and Polak were again the only guys over 20 minutes on D, but that's mostly due to PK time. Backes, Steen, McClement, McDonald were the only forwards to log more than 15 minutes.

If the Blues can keep rolling 4 lines like that all season, they are going to win lots of games later. Both of these games, the Blues started winning more battles on the boards the further the game progressed and were quicker to get to loose pucks in the 2nd and 3rd. If they can eliminate the slow starts, the Blues could be way better than most of us expect.

Conklin is better than Howard as a backup. The HNIC guys showed part of why Howard gave up those two soft five hole guys and used Conklin as an example of how not to give those up. Howard has some weird "cheater" things inside the legs of his pads and they keep him from getting flat on the ice as fast as other goalies. Conklin's pads are flat against his legs at the same spot Howard has the cheater things sticking out.

Yes, Conklin got off to a slow start, but those first two goals by Detroit would be hard for any goalie in the league to stop.

Anyones goaltending is > Detroit goaltending. Osgood shows success because he has a dynamo offense in front of him. For chrissake wasn't his save percentage .887 last year with more than a 3 GA? That's awful for the #1 man and if Howard was any better he'd obviously have won the starting job.

What the Blues showed was not so much that they could score on Detroit, but that they could keep Detroit's offense basically at bay. As long as they can keep rolling the lines and putting up goals, which I don't envision as a problem since this team has so much balance and gets production from both the likely and unlikely suspects, the big thing is just playing a sound defense. Against teams with arguably weaker offense than Detroit, that probably shouldn't be a major problem most nights. They proved they could basically do it against a tough opponent.

[quote="theohall"]And the Blues swept Detroit without Armstrong playing a single minute. He was probably the Blues best forward this pre-season. 5 G 4 A in 7 games is pretty doggone good, even if it was preseason.

Looking forward to the lineup when he's in and one of the lesser forwards (Winchester) is out.[/quote]

Armstrong is an okay energy guy and decent forechecker, and good on the PK. But Winchester hits hard, is also good on the forecheck, and his big body wears on the opponents through the game. He can also make room for his more skilled linemates on a scoring line. I wasn't a big fan of his, originally. But, I'm starting to see why Murray likes to use him. I don't think I'd take Winchester out just to put Armstrong in. Steen would have to move up to Winchester's line, and Armstrong would join McClement's line. I think the 4 lines worked fine the way Murray used them.

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